Comparing Motivation-Based and Motivation-Attitude-Based Segmentation of Tourists Visiting Sensitive Destinations

This study aims to compare motivation-based and motivation-attitude-based segmentation of tourist markets, by identifying the heterogeneity of both solutions. A k-means cluster analysis was conducted to segment markets, using the data collected from 722 respondents, via an onsite survey of visitors to the Kuang Si Waterfall and Konglor Cave in Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Subsequently, socio-demographic and trip-related characteristics among the segments were compared using ANOVA and Chi-square tests. Both motivation-based and motivation-attitude-based segmentation each generated four distinctive segments. Although both solutions are viable for segmentation, the latter was found to be more useful in separating segments than the former, as its segments were significantly more distinguishable from each other in terms of socio-demographic and trip-related characteristics. This result contributes to the body of research on the comparison of market segmentation techniques, which is a rarely investigated topic.